Posted on 02/06/2002 9:31:51 AM PST by marshmallow
THE race to succeed Pope John Paul II has been thrown open after a favourite to replace him withdrew. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the charismatic, popular and liberal-minded Archbishop of Milan since 1980, has revealed that, just short of his 75th birthday, he is suffering from a form of Parkinson’s disease, like the ailing 82-year-old Pope.
Cardinal Martini’s “progressive” stand on a range of social and sexual issues and his repeated calls for greater Church democracy have made him the unchallenged champion of Roman Catholic liberalism since he became a cardinal nearly 20 years ago.
In a farewell message to priests in his diocese yesterday, he confirmed that he would step down as archbishop in ten days’ time, when he turns 75, the retirement age for all Catholic bishops. He will retire to a “life of scholarship and contemplation” in Jerusalem. A Jesuit and a noted biblical scholar, he told priests in his diocese this week that he had long dreamt of spending “at least several months of the year” in the Holy Land.
Cardinal Martini is still eligible to take part in the voting for the next Pope, which is confined to cardinals who are under 80, and technically could therefore still be elected Pope himself. But in his message he disclosed that the trembling in his right hand, which Vatican observers had noticed in recent weeks, was the first symptom of a disease of the nervous system for which he was receiving treatment and which his doctors believed was Parkinson’s.
Aides said that the cardinal would spend his last days in office visiting priests in his diocese who were also ill “to offer them words of comfort”.
Cardinal Martini said that he would spend his 75th birthday not in Milan but in Belgrade, helping the Catholic aid agency Caritas.
The move leaves the race for the papacy wide open. Vatican insiders tip Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, the 67-year-old Archbishop of Genoa, to be the new standard-bearer of the liberals after his backing for antiglobalisation protesters at the Genoa G8 summit last summer.
Leading Italian conservative contenders include Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the 70-year-old Vicar of Rome and head of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, who shares the Pope’s views on doctrine and is constantly at his side.
The Pope, however, has also brought potential successors from the Third World into the spotlight. Leading contenders to become the first Latin American Pope include Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, of Honduras, 58, and Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, of Mexico, 59.
To serious observers of the Catholic Church, he was always a non-starter.
AB
JP would nominate CONSERVATIVES as much like himself as possible.
Count on it....any new pope will be a traditionalist. Worldwide, The church is advancing real well under a conservative interpretation. No reason to throw the laity into a tizzy....only America and the West would welcome a liberal. That's about 200 million of the world's one billion catholics.
Speak for yourself, bro'.
Perhaps the majority in America would welcome a 'liberal' (ie: a heretic), but far from all.
I agree with you. Just didn't say completely what I was trying to point out. "Only in West would a small, vocal liberal group welcome a lib pope." Something like that.
Am I forgiven?
AB
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